Last week, The Age spoke with visiting social media researcher danah boyd about parents monitoring their children’s online activities.

PARENTS should not stalk their children online, warns Dr Danah Boyd, a leading US cyber safety expert visiting Australia to lecture on teens’ online privacy.

But Dr Boyd warns that constant parental online surveillance not only abuses teens’ privacy but also obliges them to forge coded forms of communication online, using in-jokes, shared references and even song lyrics to evade parental scrutiny.